The
original emergence of life and consciousness in the
universe is...attributed to chance in modern cosmology.
When scholastic theology encountered inexplicable elements
of reality, it frequently deemed them mysteries. When
science encounters such elements, it now tends to regard
them as random chance events. B. Alan Wallacex. Choosing Reality,
p. 64.

The Ground of Creativity
04/13/2018

One of the spiritual realities for which one must
account in a philosophy or theology is that of creativity. Creativity is
a reality that we both sense and experience in ourselves and others. As
humans we obviously have this dimension, but is there another source or
ground of this marvelous aspect of our experience?

To his significant credit, Rupert
Sheldrake has wrestled with the aspects of physical and biological
morphology, and as one of the world's foremost thinkers he has given this
question some deserved thought. In a conference-seminar where we were
both lecturers and where the existing paradigms in the public
consciousness were significantly challenged he suggested both in a
lecture and in discussions that there seem to be four general
possibilities. These four basic sources or explanations for the
ground of creativity are:

Chance or possibility

Traditional God/Creator

Random mixing of Platonic forms

The physical universe itself is a living intelligent organism

1. Chance or possibility. In the godless,
(no creator) "scientistic" or evolutionary paradigm the ultimate ground or
explanation of creativity, of course, lies in the paradigm's overarching
reality of chance or possibility. Along with matter as we know it,
life, intelligence, love, morality, aesthetics, and other human
dimensions, creativity is just the first or merely one in a series of "happy
accidents" or emergent properties that have developed to give us our humanity and reality as we
know it. Well, who is to say that it couldn't happen? Me, at
least.

2. Traditional God/Creator. Probably not much
needs to be said about this, because this is becoming less and less
believable, and more and more repugnant to those that believe in the
nobility of humankind, and are less and less enchanted with the
traditional definition of God.

3. Random mixing of Platonic forms. Not sure what this means
exactly,
but the key word must be random.

4. The physical universe itself is a living and intelligent
organism. This is one of those grandiose propositions that have such
widespread appeal because they are so sweeping and extensive. This is really
just a new wrinkle on an old doctrine called pantheism, but more and
more non-mainstream thinkers and scientists are going there. It excuses
them from dealing with the messier aspects of reality, such as suffering
and the origin of evil, and they can just concentrate on their work in a
more sterile spiritual environment.

Of course, this site promulgates the idea that the originator of all
things is, was, and always will be totally and only human and we are
descendants. Therefore, the ground of creativity actually lies just where we currently experience it—in
minds of human beings.